“Who left when he was eighteen to go fight in a dumb war. I was barely back before she bought it.”
The rusty barge banged into a brick parapet from an old building, crushing it like a wet graham cracker. The container had plenty of room to travel down the flooded street when it was pointed in the right direction, but when it turned sideways, the two-hundred-foot length often clipped parts of the underwater city.
“But you did come back,” he said sadly, noting the bodies floating nearby. Swirling water caught large clumps of garbage and debris in eddies, and sometimes the bodies hovered there, as if unwilling to leave the city where they once lived. He positioned himself so Butch would have a hard time seeing the nearest corpses. If he recognized one of them…
A few minutes after they entered Paducah, they shot out the other side, and back onto the main channel. The waves had settled down, though the speed of the water remained fast.
“How are we going to get off this floating barge of death?” Butch asked while carefully getting off his butt and into a half-kneeling crouch.
“I’ve been wondering that myself. We’re still moving too fast for the johnboat, but if it keeps calming down, we can jump in it and head back. The high waters might let us drive the boat all the way to the dam using city streets and farmer’s fields. Might be kind of cool.”
“You still want to go back for those ladies?”
Ezra nodded. “I promised them we’d help.” He laughed, remembering his last words to the women. “I told them we’d be right back when we went under the bridge.”
“Yeah…they saw us get dragged away by the flood. I think they’d understand what happened.”
“I’m worried about them. They’ll probably try to force their way through the roadblock without us. I told Colby I’d watch over his wife and her friends. I’d hate to go back on our promise.”
“The women will probably have a better chance of getting through than two tough guys like us,” Butch suggested.
“Maybe. Or the guys on that blockade will see an easy opportunity to take advantage of them…”
“War is hell,” Butch deadpanned. “Once the mission kicks off, there’s not much you can do to sway the event, other than stay alive. We’ve been dealt our hand; the ladies have been dealt theirs.”
Ezra figured out what he was saying. “You don’t want to go back, do you?”
Butch looked out on the miles-wide river. “It might not be up to us. You have to be ready for the possibility. We’re heading west right now. We might have to consider this the kick in the ass to get us heading for Yellowstone.”
He immediately thought of the message he’d left on Grace’s phone. “Yeah, I hear you. Let’s see what happens when the river calms down. If we can get back to where we came from, I’d like to give it one more try. If not, we may have to let the barge of death determine where we end up.”
They both laughed, letting out some of the rigid tension in his spine. Ezra was about to stand up and stretch, like Butch had started to do, but a deep, distant roar caught his ear, even above the splashing, choppy water all around him.
“What in the name of all that’s holy is next?” he asked.
Chapter 22
Billings, MT
Grace led the convoy on the snowy road for the fifty miles to Billings. The blanket of clouds finally pulled back a little, providing natural light to see the desolate landscape. The rough Montana hills surrounding them could have been piles of coal, they were so black with sooty snow.
Asher had his camera watch out again, snapping pictures of horses standing in snow drifts, rivers cascading out of their banks with all the snow melt, and numerous abandoned cars and trucks along the route.
“What are you going to do with all those photographs? Aren’t they all going to turn out like black boxes? It’s been so dark.”
“Where I come from, you tell the story of your day with photographs. Normally, I share what I’m eating for breakfast or what’s happening at the company water cooler, but this will be a lot more interesting.”
Grace wasn’t big on social media. She preferred to walk up and down her street and meet with friends face-to-face. For the most part, they were the same way, though once they were together, they often used tablets and phones to hang out. She viewed it as the best of both worlds. Then, once she got to Yellowstone, she used her smartphone even less.
I didn’t want to talk to Mom.
She was glad she’d gotten the opportunity to tell her mom how much she loved her last night. If Misha hadn’t stolen her phone, she would have told her again today. It also struck her how many wonderful scenes would have been perfect to text her mom since she’d been working in a national park. Not Asher’s black-on-black pictures of snow, but geysers, reflecting pools, and animals of all stripes.
“I’ll never understand the need to tell the world about what you’ve eaten, but I do understand the desire to tell a story.” Grace glanced over to her friend. “Take some pictures for me, okay?”
Asher’s smile became wry. He brought the camera watch back around and aimed it at her. “Say cheese!” The click went off before she could protest.
“I look like hell. My hair!”
“Is fine,” he replied. They’d both placed their straw hats on the center console between them while on the move, so her gnarly blonde locks were exposed to the world. “Here, I’ll take one of me to balance it out.”
Asher turned the watch on himself and made it click.
“How is a picture of your ugly mug going to make me feel better?” she asked with thick sarcasm.
He cracked up laughing. “Come on, don’t tell me you go around kissing ugly mugs for your job. If it helps, I’ll let you throw another snowball on my face. You know, to cover my hideousness.”
It was a playful exaggeration, to be sure. She’d kissed him in the moment back when they’d survived the car falling out of the sky, and it wasn’t a mistake back then. However, they weren’t safe yet. She had to keep her professional appearance up, or she’d open herself up to making mistakes. Flirting on the job could be fatal.
“I’ll make you a deal; when we get to Billings, we’ll find a place to stay, get a hot shower, I’ll peel out of these stinky clothes, and then you can take all the pictures you want.”
Asher turned serious. “You’d really take off your clothes for a photo shoot?”
She whipped her head in his direction, ready to defend her honor. His smile widened, indicating he was toying with her. Grace rolled her eyes. “You’re a jerk! I meant with clean clothes on—”
“But you said!” he playfully interjected.
“No! I take back the invitation!”
They laughed together like the torture of leading the convoy was over. The headlights of the cars and trucks on the flat, non-mountainous two-lane highway behind her were reassuring in how normal they appeared. Misha was gone. Billings was close. In fact, as she laughed, the Welcome to Billings road sign came into view.
A couple of cars were parked in the road, end to end, blocking the way. She didn’t think much of it as she rolled up, but when she put the truck in park, Asher whispered to her. “They have rifles. I count four men.”
“It’s probably to keep out looters. I think it’s pretty common in disaster scenarios like this one.” She waved all around, as if she was the center of said scenario. “Let’s go talk to them.”
Grace grabbed her park ranger hat and shoved the creaky door open. Asher did the same on his side, then met her on the walk toward to the men. They got to within twenty feet before a grim-faced older man in a leather duster came out to meet them.
“You two hold up. You have to go back the way you came. Highway’s closed.”
She laughed despite the situation. “You can’t be serious. We just came over the mountain. We lost several of our party to violent crashes. There was a freaking meteorite strike back there. We’ve been heading to Billings to find some safety. The police in Red Lodge said FEMA is
here.”
“They aren’t here yet,” the guard replied, sounding disappointed.
A female voice came from behind Grace. “We’re from Billings. We’re with the Montana Stockade Rodeo.”
She turned to see the curly-haired rancher woman from the silver Ford pickup truck walking her way. The rancher’s daughter scrambled to come up next to her. Of all the people in her convoy, the pair looked the most like the men at the checkpoint. She hoped that would give the whole group some credibility.
The man didn’t seem impressed. “I’m sorry, ma’am. We’re already full-up with rodeo folk. I’ve had numerous people tell me they’re part of the rodeo, so I let them through. Unless you have proof, I have to assume you’re not telling the truth. It’s the way it is right now.”
“My husband has our booking information for the hotel. I could go get him and bring him back here. I only need to be let through—”
“That’s not possible,” the duster-man replied.
The mother turned to her, and Grace’s heart skipped a beat at the question she knew was coming.
“Are you going to let these crooks stop us from getting where we belong?”
Cairo, IL
Ezra considered himself a pretty level-headed guy no matter what was happening. He’d seen some guys throw around tools and threaten bosses back at the post office garage, but he’d never been afraid for his life. When the trucker pulled a gun on him, he’d certainly experienced fear, but he didn’t wither into a blubbering mess like a wilted flower. The sight ahead nearly made him wet his drawers.
“That can’t be real,” Butch croaked.
He’d traveled all over the tri-state area for his job, visiting post offices to service vehicles, so he was familiar with what town should have been ahead of him. “Cairo is gone,” he announced in a dramatic tone, using the local emphasis on the name, so it sounded like “care-oh”.
The town normally sat on a narrow finger of land that pointed south to the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. The rushing flood of Kentucky Lake had joined with the waters of the Ohio River, creating an unstoppable torrent speeding down the channel he was riding. However, the other big river was also running high, flowing fast. They came together almost head-on, creating a vortex of watery debris shooting fifty or a hundred feet above the surrounding countryside. It was as if a third river came out of the ground and fire-hosed the water into the sky.
“I think another dam burst up the Mississippi. There’s just too much water banging around out there.” His guts were as liquid as the river in front of them.
“Got any ideas?” Butch said weakly, pressing tight against the lip of the cargo hold.
There wasn’t much time. The fast-moving waters dragged the barge around a bend in the terrain, exposing more of the colliding rivers each second. Barges like his were sucked into the tumult and tossed around like they were made of Styrofoam. There were dozens of them going in as he watched; a few even came out of the spray, as if they’d come from the other river.
“Get up!” Ezra said, knowing there was only one way to stay alive. “We’re getting out of here.”
“Are you freaking nuts? We can’t escape it.”
“Are you serious? Where are your Army skills when you need them? I need you to expert your way off this boat. Come on!” He grabbed Butch’s meaty arm, not waiting for him to make up his mind.
Butch laughed ironically. “My Army skills only apply to things I’m good at. Swimming? Not so much.”
“I know,” he replied in a comforting voice. He’d dealt with Susan’s panic attacks for years and knew the proper balance of calm and drive necessary to keep a frightened person moving until they got to safety. Susan’s last panic attack required him to help her out of the water. Now, with Butch, he had to help him get in.
“Climb down!” The little johnboat bounced in the rough waters at the bottom of the ladder. It wasn’t designed for such unsettled turbulence, but nothing was designed for what was ahead. Their only chance was to avoid it. That could only be done with a powered boat.
His young friend did as instructed, with the typical robot-like motions he’d often witnessed in Susan. When he got to the boat at the bottom, he fell in, draping himself over the middle seat. “Shit, E-Z, I can’t move!”
“You did great,” he reassured him. “Now hang tight. I’ll get you out of here.”
After untying the rope, the johnboat immediately separated from the larger cargo vessel. By the time he’d shuffled past Butch to reach the motor, they were fifty yards from the barge. They also had gotten within a couple miles of the raging water junction.
The motor started up immediately, but when he gave it some gas, they barely moved. The flowing water and vast scale of the river made it hard to sense any headway. Ezra angled north, intending to get to the edge of the black hole eating barges, towboats, and everything else flowing into it. The leftward curve of the river made debris naturally flow to the right, so he tried to use that to his advantage.
The front of the boat slapped on the waves, sending water over the low sidewalls and onto the deck. In a couple of minutes, there were inches of water inside. They had nothing to bail it out, so he could do little but watch and calculate if they’d make it to the distant shore before they swamped.
We won’t have a shot in hell.
“Hey, Butch! You have to use your shoe to bail!”
“Are you crazy?” the young man replied.
“Just do it!” he cried out. “Or we’re going to sink!”
It would have made Ezra laugh in any other context. Butch acted as if he was hanging from the side of a skyscraper; he always kept one hand gripped to the side rail. However, he also slipped off one of his cowboy boots and dipped it in the water at his feet. A moment later, he emptied it over the edge.
They did make some progress, and while the tiny motor had no chance of taking them against the rushing river, or even sideways in it, he used the current to move diagonally. For a short time, he believed they’d make it all the way, but there came a point when he realized they weren’t quite on the right path.
The river collision sounded like bouts of thunder that wouldn’t shut off. The loose barges clanged together as they went onto the tall spires of water, adding the crunching sound of metal to the cacophony.
Butch remained where he was, paralyzed by the watery death surrounding him, though he slowly drew water from the swamped interior and threw it out. Ezra’s heart pounded so fast it would have cracked his old heart rate monitor. He came to the belated conclusion full throttle on the outboard wasn’t going to do it.
What he needed was a better boat. The new idea popped into his head and the thought modified what he saw on the water as if he’d put on a pair of sunglasses. There were a lot of the industrial-scale barges floating the river, but there were also smaller boats. Pleasure cruisers. Bass boats. Half-capsized sailboats. And also a more familiar model.
“I don’t believe it,” he said dryly.
Water sloshed at Ezra’s ankles as he changed course into the path of the monster consuming the river. They were already doomed to hit it, but he wasn’t committing suicide. He steered toward the one thing that might save their lives.
“Please have keys inside.”
Chapter 23
Billings, MT
Grace saw the town of Billings from the rise where the men had set up the roadblock. It was drizzling rain, yet snow remained on the ground. Cloud cover made it difficult to see the whole town, but it was a lot bigger than Paducah back home. The place would certainly have hotels and fast-food joints; she desperately wanted both.
“Please,” she said to the man in the duster, “I have to get these people to safety. It’s my job as a ranger.”
He shook his head emphatically. “And my job is to keep my family safe. They’re back in town, along with thousands of tourists who were here for the rodeo.”
“Like us!” the cowgirl mother replied.
�
�Like them,” he agreed, apparently not understanding how the woman was trying to get him to make the connection.
Grace took a step to be within a few feet of the guy. “We won’t stay. We’re only passing through.” She remembered the few drivers she’d talked to back at the junction inside Yellowstone. People heading east were all destined for cities far away—Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City. If she could at least get them one night in Billings, it would absolve her of the obligation she felt toward them. Tomorrow, everyone could strike out on their own if they wished.
“You aren’t getting it. We’re full up.”
Grace locked eyes with the man; her brain urgently searched for the authority to force him to relent. As she did, the rotor sound of a helicopter came from the cloudy skies. She immediately imagined a mayor coming on to the scene to further beat it into her she wasn’t getting through.
“I’ll trade my watch,” Asher stated like he’d made the most difficult decision of his career. He held the bulky black watch, so the man was able to see it from where he stood.
“Hard pass,” the man replied.
“But this is a fifteen-hundred-dollar watch,” Asher said with hurt in his voice.
The duster-fellow held up his own wrist. “My ten-dollar watch tells time, too.”
She pointed to her truck. “How about this? I’d trade it for safe passage of one night.”
The man winced at the sight of her NPS Suburban. “Dang. You drove that all the way from Yellowstone?”
Grace looked back, appreciating how far she’d come in the soot-stained truck. She felt an odd kinship with the vehicle; they’d traveled together from the hottest fires to the coldest mountain passes. It did look sad, like a smiling face with all her teeth punched out. “Yeah, she’s been through hell, but she runs fine.”
“Tons of respect for what you’ve done, but we can’t be bribed. That’s why they sent me out here alone. They’d shoot me if I came back and told them we made a side deal to let you through.”
Impact (Book 2): Bounce Page 18